Suspension
by arianna99
Summary: How do you move from the end of one thing to the beginning of another? John and Evan both try to figure it out. It's nice, knowing there's someone there to talk to. On some occasions, it's even nice to talk. DADT fic.


**Title: **Suspension

**Rating: **PG-13, for swearing

**Fandom/Pairing: **SGA, McShep, Parrish/Lorne

**Summary: **What do you do with it once you've gotten what you've always wished for? How do you move from the end of one thing to the beginning of another?

After it happens, Lorne and Sheppard start spending a lot more time together. It's nice, knowing there's someone there who understands. Very rarely, it's even nice to talk about it. DADT fic.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. News of the century there, huh?

**Notes: **The Lorne and Sheppard dynamic just sort of…interests me. Don't ask why.

The embers of the campfire were still glowing, just barely. Katie Brown and Teyla were sleeping peacefully.

Lorne wasn't. He had tossed and turned for a while, but it had been less relaxing than just sitting still, and it would have bothered the others sooner or later.

They were on an alien planet, as per usual, but this time it was to collect plants, which was why Katie Brown was there, and to discuss trading, which was why the others were there.

Lorne was staring into the fire moodily, poking at the embers with a stick. A lot had happened recently. Well, there was always a lot happening on Atlantis. There were always discoveries and emergencies and a dozen other things that Lorne had never seen coming in his life.

This was different. This was something that cut right into his personal life He'd always had drummed into his head that professional and private must be separated. Professional was the face you showed the world, and private was nobody's business and had to stay that way for his own good.

Only now…well, now it wasn't like that anymore. Things could change. David had been the absolute soul of patience, but-

"Hey," Sheppard said.

Lorne started. He had thought Sheppard was asleep. "Sir," he said.

Sheppard yawned, sat down beside him. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

"No, sir," Lorne said, keeping his eyes carefully on the fire, as if Sheppard would know, just by looking at him, that he'd been breaking his own rules and thinking about his personal life while on duty.

Sheppard sighed. It was a quiet sigh, but in the complete silence that surrounded them, it was irrationally loud. "Lorne," Sheppard said, half question, half demand. "You're not used to sleeping alone, are you?"

Lorne looked up, eyes wide and lips tight, no use keeping anything back when Sheppard said stuff like that. "Yes," he said. He left out the 'sir' part, though. It didn't seem appropriate.

Sheppard smiled at him, which was more than a little scary. "You know what?" he said. Lorne didn't know what and he didn't need to say so. "Me neither," Sheppard said. And that was, perhaps, as close as they would come for a while.

-

David was honest-to-god geek stock. He was a botanist, for Christ's sake. No one thought to question his geekness. And as a geek, he's seen Star Wars five million times and knew very single one of Inigo Montoya's lines. Like any self-respecting person, he used this great weapon mainly in sarcasm, but like any geek, he had a big soft gooey center like a freakin' Mars Bar and this was completely unfair to him.

And really, it was for Evan too. But…how did you get there, how did you get out of the way your life had always been? Evan was fighting an uphill battle against years of repression and secrecy.

He started spending afternoons in Sheppard's office when they were both on Atlantis, going over the reports and carefully not talking about any of the things that was making the rest of the city buzz. There was a strange new kind of kinship between them now, which was one of the good things about the new change in regs (one of the others was the delighted smile on David's face).

They spent most of the time in Sheppard's office doing paperwork, talking about music, sports, recent or upcoming missions, or, and sometimes that was the best, not talking at all.

Just sometimes, though, it was nice to know that there was someone to talk to, and very rarely, it was nice to actually take advantage of that.

They talked elliptically for the most, out of habit and lingering paranoia. One afternoon, Sheppard interrupted a lazy conversation (Elvis vs. Johnney Cash, which Evan thought was ridiculous, because no way could Johnny Cash ever top Elvis) and asked, "How long?"

It wasn't really a non-sequitor, because the subject was always there, between them, and even if they weren't talking about it, they were aware they could be.

"Two years and a bit," Evan said. "You?"

"Four years," Sheppard said.

"Wow," Evan whistled through his teeth. "That's a long time."

"Yeah," Sheppard smiled at his paperwork. "Hey, can I tell you a secret?"

Evan stared at his commanding officer for a second. "I don't know, sir," he said. "I guess so. Unless it involves braiding each other's hair or nailpolish."

Sheppard grinned, and Evan knew that grin, the flyboy one, had used it himself before. "Nope," Sheppard said. "We would need to talk about boys, though."

Evan grinned back. "I think I can deal, sir."

"Okay." Sheppard leaned back, rested his boots on top of the paperwork they'd been doing for the past few hours. Evan resisted the urge to wince. "So you know how we had to go see Jeannie Miller a while back?"

"Sure," Evan said. Some big physics breakthrough the SGC desperately needed both McKays and Carter working on. In Canada, no less. Sheppard had gone along as part of the necessary guard.

"Well," Sheppard said, his smile making the slow, frightening change from 'cool flyboy' to 'lovesick puppy'. He pulled out the chain that held his dogtags. There was a ring on it.

"That could be a problem with the Ancient Tech," Evan said blandly. "Some of it's magnetic."

"That all you have to say?" Sheppard asked.

"No," Evan said.

"Okay."

Evan went back to his paperwork.

"You gonna say it?"

Evan looked up. "I'm still working on the formulation."

"How far are you?"

"Haven't quite gotten to words yet, but it's not a scream anymore."

"I can work with that," Sheppard said.

"Okay." Evan laid down his pen carefully. "What do you plan to do now?" He was careful to keep his voice even and neutral. "Move in together? Come out?" There was a freak-out lurking just around the corner from this, he could feel it.

Sheppard shrugged. "Maybe."

"Huh," Evan said. "That's…interesting."

"Okay, what are you thinking? Because you're starting to freak me out."

"I'm thinking," Evan said slowly, "that if you come out I probably shouldn't yet."

"Why not?" Sheppard asked.

"Well, some of the soldiers are gonna feel weird about having a gay commander. They'll need someone to talk to."

"That sounds like an excuse, Major," Sheppard said, finally taking his feet off the paperwork.

"Well…" Evan said. "It's kind of embarrassing, isn't it? Just…opening up telling everyone all about your personal preferences."

"I wouldn't know," Sheppard said. "I've never done it."

"Me neither."

-

The next day, Sheppard and McKay quietly moved in together. So quietly, in fact, that Evan didn't notice until two nights later, when McKay answered Sheppard's radio.

"Oh," he said. "Right. Uh, I was kinda…um. I thought I radioed Sheppard."

"Oh," McKay said, and Evan just knew what his face looked like, eyes wide, cheeks read, brain going a mile a minute. "Uh. Hey, John?"

There was shuffling on the other end and a second later, Sheppard's voice came crackling down the radio. "Major. Sorry about that, the radios kinda got mixed up earlier. We were-"

"Thanks, sir, I get the picture," Evan said hurriedly.

There was a pause, long enough for Evan to worry he'd said the wrong thing. "Prude," Sheppard said at last, but Evan could hear the smile in his voice.

"I'm sorry sir," he said. "I was under the impression that your sex life was none of my business."

"Huh," Sheppard said. "Well, it's good to stick to your instincts. So what's the problem?"

"Uh," Evan said, drawing a blank.

"I assume there's a reason you called at a time when decent people should be asleep?"

"Oh," Evan said. "Right. There's a problem."

"Isn't there always?"

And that was that.

-

A few days later, they were doing some more of the not talking, manly thing. That is, Evan was. Sheppard had apparently decided that now that his big damn fluffy coming out was well on its way, he was giving that up too.

"So what does Parrish say?"

Evan's pen slipped in the middle of his signature and his ears went red so fast he was almost certain they'd shrivel up with heat.

"I mean, I've met the guy a few time and he doesn't seem the type for cloak and dagger."

"I'm not sure hiding a relationship counts as cloak and dagger," Evan said. "Sir."

Sheppard wave that aside carelessly. "Semantics. So what's he say?"

"Not that it's any of your business," Evan said, "but he hasn't said anything."

The 'yet' at the end of that sentence went unspoken, but not unheard.

-

If Evan were to choose a word to describe McKay and Sheppard coming out, it would be slow.

Very slow. Glacially slow. Slow like an iceberg slowly melting, droplet by droplet. Most people had gathered after a few weeks, it was true, but they did nothing to officially make it known. All that people had to go on were rumours of shared quarters, the occasional touch.

And Evan supposed he understood why Sheppard was so okay with the whole thing. He wasn't actually doing it. He was letting other people do it for him.

That was what kind of did it for Evan.

It'd been months. He'd spent so long waiting for this to happen, and now it had he'd just been flailing around like a beached whale. It wasn't fair to David, and it wasn't fair to Evan himself. He was military, and not like Sheppard, in his laconic, sarcastic way. Evan actually really fucking believed he was supposed to stand up for what he believed in and protect people and all that shit. So it was time he got his rear in gear.

The day one of the medical staff said they thought they'd seen a wedding ring on Sheppard's dog tags, Evan came into the cafeteria.

No, Evan strode into the cafeteria purposefully, which kind of sucked, because he meant this seriously and didn't care to look like a harlequin romance.

He located David sitting with the other botanists, not actually talking, but listening avidly, and walked over to him. David looked up at him, surprise written all over his face.

"David," he said, pulling David up.

"Evan?" David asked, perplexed look all over his face, and there were so many reasons Evan loved him right then.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," Evan said, and kissed him.

Right there. In the cafeteria. In front of everyone. Which was also a total cliché, but it was about the message, not the method of conveying it. And it didn't really matter how cheesy it was, because the slide of David's tongue against his felt so right there were no words for it, and David's hands were sliding around his waist, steadying him, and this was how it was supposed to be, this was why he'd wanted that damn regulation changed in the first place.

Anyway. He was allowed to be cheesy. He was a pilot with a mutant gene who helped save the world on a regular basis, and he was gay. That called for some cheese.

"So," Sheppard's voice said from behind him. Evan and David broke apart, reluctantly. "As embarrassing as you thought?"

"Ask me again when I realize just how many people are watching," Evan shot back.

Sheppard gave him a nod and a laconic grin. "Will do." He walked over towards his table, on the other side of the cafeteria.

His hand was linked with McKay's.

Evan had a feeling life was going to get a whole hell of a lot more interesting.


End file.
